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| In Harrowing of Hades, fresco in the parecclesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul, c. 1315, raising Adam and Eve is depicted as part of the Resurrection icon, as it always is in the East. © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / , via Wikimedia Commons |
Holy
Friday
After he gave up his spirit, the
dogwood grieved
that it was
strong and straight and heavy,
chopped down and
crudely made to be
the tall cross he
dragged up Golgotha Hill.
He blessed the tree that was only
fulfilling the scriptures,
that had no will
and yet could feel,
and shriveled and
shrank crookedly in shame.
He blessed the tree and suddenly
the
dogwoods all over the Earth
bloomed
white or pink, luminous
in twilight, a little thornless
crown at the center
and four fleshy
petals for the points of the cross.
And a robin landed on one branch
to announce the spring,
and a mockingbird landed on another
to repeat the good news,
and an owl landed on another to wisely chant
a lament
for the dead.
Then the ground trembled and
opened,
the
archangels flew out of the immense
waning red
Passover moon,
and flanked him
as he descended into the underworld.
And the sage and thyme and
rosemary
growing
close to the ground
released
their fragrance as they were trampled
by
him who would trample death,
who pushed aside the granite stone
covering the tombs
and
took Eve and Adam by the hand
and
pulled them bodily from their graves.
The first mother and father
shouted out to be risen,
on
their feet, held in each other’s arms,
touching heart to
heart, and testing
the muscles in
their fingers.
The owl was heard solemnly chanting praise;
the mockingbird repeating the good news;
the robin announcing the spring.
Yet he would not be interrupted,
the cattle and sheep,
winemakers and
bakers, farmers and shepherds,
and the loyal
dogs leaning against them,
the weavers and the barefoot
children died too soon,
and women
exhausted with birth
found themselves upright, standing
witness
as all the souls
were good
after their
original nature.
Even the warrior kings and even
the rich,
killers whose
gold starved the rest,
he allowed into
the cloud,
let them be poor and naked and
sick,
let them hold a
dogwood branch as a scepter.
--Aliki Barnstone, the poem originally appeared in Great River Review, and will appear in her forthcoming book, Dwelling, the Sheep Meadow Press, 2016.
NOTE: The poem refers to the Legend of the Dogwood and to the icons of the “Harrowing of Hell,” in which Jesus is depicted raising Adam and Eve from their tombs.
